These 40 House Republicans Voted Against Funding for Their Own Districts

• 83 House Republicans voted against a bill to fund large portions of the federal government.
• 40 did so despite securing millions of dollars in funding for their districts.
• It’s another example of “vote no, take the dough.”

On Wednesday, 83 House Republicans voted against a roughly $460 billion package of bills to fund large swaths of the federal government.

Forty of them did so despite requesting — and securing — millions of dollars in federal funding for a variety of projects in their districts.

Take Rep. Lauren Boebert for example. The Colorado Republican announced on Wednesday that she would vote against what she dubbed the “Swamp Omnibus,” slamming the bill as a “monstrosity” that “funds the Green New Deal.”

That’s despite the bill including more than $20 million that she herself had requested for projects across the state’s 3rd congressional district, which she recently abandoned to seek reelection in a safer district on the other side of the state.

That included $5 million to develop a water reservoir in Wolf Creek, $2.2 million for water infrastructure in Craig, and millions more for highway improvements in the district that she jointly requested with Democratic Sens. Michael Bennett and John Hickenlooper.

Boebert’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

There’s also Republican Rep. Tim Burchett, who secured more than $12 million in earmark funding for his East Tennessee district.

“Everything that we’ve asked for, I could defend,” Burchett told Business Insider after the vote. “I don’t think you can defend some of that stuff that’s in there. It’s just too much.”

That included more than $2.3 million for a health screening program for the University of Tennessee Medical Center, $2 million for an affordable housing project in Knoxville, and more than $2 million to establish a Healthcare Supply Chain Data Engineering Center at Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, a small town on the Kentucky border.

Yet Burchett was among the Republicans who voted against the bill, which included the entirety of his earmarks. He cited both the cost of the bill and the fact that it was a package of six appropriation bills, which he said he’d prefer to vote on individually.

“There are things that are in there that I can’t support,” said Burchett. “And I just made that commitment to the folks back home.”

Through a process known as congressionally directed spending — colloquially known as “earmarks” — members of Congress can request federal funding for individual projects in their districts.

The idea behind the practice, which Democrats brought back in 2021 after Republicans banned the practice 10 years earlier, is to give lawmakers a more personal stake in government funding legislation, inspire bipartisanship, and grease the wheels of the legislative process.

Yet Wednesday’s vote shows that logic only goes so far and that plenty of Republicans are willing — in the words of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — to “vote no and take the dough.”

It’s a practice that’s landed some Republicans in hot water recently, including Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar of Florida.

After Business Insider first reported on the congresswoman touting $650,000 that she secured in a December 2022 government funding bill, she was pressed on it by a local journalist, and the interview did not go well.

In another instance from last year, Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama celebrated billions in broadband funding that the federal government was providing for his state, despite voting against the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that provided it.

But Republicans weren’t the only ones to vote against the bill on Wednesday, despite securing earmark funding. Democratic Reps. Maxwell Frost of Florida and Mark Takano of California both voted against the legislation over gun policy changes in the bill.

Wednesday’s bill, which still has to pass the Senate, will only partially fund the government, though it contains the vast majority of the earmarks.

Congress has until March 22 to pass another package of bills that will fund the rest of the government.

Here are the 40 Republicans who voted against the bill, despite securing earmark funding:

• Jodey Arrington of Texas

• Jack Bergman of Michigan

• Gus Bilirakis of Florida

• Lauren Boebert of Colorado

• Mike Bost of Illinois

• Tim Burchett of Tennessee

• Ben Cline of Virginia

• Mike Collins of Georgia

• James Comer of Kentucky

• Dan Crenshaw of Florida

• John Curtis of Utah

• Scott DesJarlais of Tennessee

• Byron Donalds of Florida

• Brad Finstad of Minnesota

• Michelle Fischbach of Minnesota

• Matt Gaetz of Florida

• Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia

• Morgan Griffith of Virginia

• Harriet Hageman of Wyoming

• Andy Harris of Maryland

• Diana Harshbarger of Tennessee

• Clay Higgins of Louisiana

• Wesley Hunt of Texas

• Darin LaHood of Illinois

• Barry Loudermilk of Georgia

• Anna Paulina Luna of Florida

• Brian Mast of Florida

• Cory Mills of Florida

• Greg Murphy of North Carolina

• Troy Nehls of Texas

• Bill Posey of Florida

• Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington

• John Rose of Tennessee

• Keith Self of Texas

• Greg Steube of Florida

• Claudia Tenney of New York

• Jeff Van Drew of New Jerey

• Beth Van Duyne of Texas

• Mike Waltz of Florida

• Randy Weber of Florida